Subscribe to RSSCars The Winner On Night
The Veolia head emerged today to tell Aucklanders to virtually consider taking their car to this weekend’s Eden Park RWC match.
And neighbouring Westfield St Lukes shopping centre is going to clear its carparks and offer $10 parking a vehicle during each match night.
In the wake of Friday’s fiasco, Auckland Transport revealed in its report on the failures that it now anticipates that for future travel to the games at Eden Park and the Downtown fanzone, 50 to 70% of people will travel by private vehicle.
“The parking traffic schemes are being reviewed to ensure sufficient contingency is available if higher proportions travel by car. Then major impact will be on demand for parking and a safe walking route to the venue,” it says.
This was traffic around Eden Park for the Tri Nations. Expect an even crazier scene as people hunt for parking beyond the Park’s traffic restricted zone.
Tri Nations traffic scenes around Morningside train station
To be honest, everyone I speak to who is going to future Eden Park games tell me they will no longer even consider taking PT, even buses, after the repeated TV news footage of people desperately climbing out of carriages and struggling to get to steady land as if escaping from a disaster.
Public transport is the loser at the end of the day - and Aucklanders’reliance on the motor vehicle is confirmed.
Cars cram parking spaces around Eden neighbourhood for previous game
Today Veolia Auckland head Graham Sibery was asked by Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking what guarantee he could give that a train meltdown would not happen again for those getting to Eden Park despite the measures announced yesterday after the Auckland Transport report into the train fail.
“I think the thing we all focused on now is to make sure that the rail network does everything that it can for future games. But there are also other other alternatives and better use of other alternative modes to carry the balance in a different way.”
Hosking asked if he was saying he could give no guarantee the same would not happen again especially for travel to the semi and quarter finals and final.
“What we are focused on with AT is to make sure there are alternative measures, in the form of additional buses and other ways trying to ensure people would be directed on to other modes earlier. The rail network can do what it can do which is carry a certain level of capacity.
“If the same number of people got on to the train network in the same volumes on to the trains we would struggle again. It can not cope with those volumes.”
Regular users understand the network struggles on an average day as the photos of overcrowding often published on AKT show.
Crushed in like sardines is becoming common
I am still at a loss as to why anyone expected anything different on a day people were urged to go home at 330 or head to the waterfront colliding with those trying to get to the Park because that is what the marketing said.
RWC Friday Fail reports - full details and what is being done
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16 Comments
What an inacurate article. Someones not doing their homework. Regular Auckland commuters remain undeterred, catching the train as they usually do.
Taking the car to Eden Park, at 70%, that’s got to be some 25,000 vehicles around the stadium somewhere. Yeah right!!
Well the PT experiment of the 2000′s was a nice try, but in the end it just doesn’t seem possible to get a working system in place. Too many parties involved, too many agendas in play, and a long New Zealand legacy of never being able to fund a vision for the future. But it wasn’t for lack of enthusiasm by the public. They filled the trains, and left the motorways empty last Friday. Back to cars we go….
But seriously, I think the push to change travel habits has suffered a major blow, for now. It will take time for people to forget the headlines, and the eventual introduction of electric trains will see patronage increase once more.
The trick now will be to avoid another meltdown in PT credibility by ensuring that Britomart and Newmarket don’t become bottlenecks that cause daily network delays as patronage increases in the absence of the CBDRL.
Hopefully the RWC debacle will be a wake up call to both the current government, and the opposition, as to what they will face when that second (and more long lasting) meltdown occurs.
They now know there is a political price to pay for allowing the Auckland rail network to become congested.
Parking at Saint Lukes? There goes the neighbourhood
“Trains full during the World Cup? Drive to the game, it’s the Auckland way”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10752110
Parking at St Lukes seems to be a pretty logical solution. However, patrons doing so should be told that they will need patience when driving home. It will take about 20 minutes to walk to St Lukes from Eden Park, and then another one or two hours to get back to the motorway system at either Western Springs or Greenlane, taking into account the other motorists who had parked down sidestreets. Not much different than a decent concert at Western Springs where traffic doesn’t really sort itself out until about 1 am.
It’s a little bit gutting for those of who actually live on “one of those little streets near Eden Park” to read articles in the Herald encouraging 50,000 people to drive into our neighbourhood and park on our streets on a pretty regular basis for the next 6 weeks. I was hoping after Friday that we could avoid the usual congestion/air pollution/craziness you get for a standard rugby game around our house. But no such luck clearly!
This is the real cost of event staff stupidity. We’ve spent years getting a greater public take up for trains and buses.
Eden Park useage tends to be weighted to the North Shore, CBD and the east. We’ve seen very successful train useage for the last two years, and very good take up from North Shore patrons via the bus-way. And a good CBD shuttle.
What the venue and patrons need are consistency. While the area can park 8-10000 cars (and has done for many years), it grinds 4 arterials to a halt on a week night. that has huge economic costs. people forget there is one more Friday night game (3rd place).
We don’t yet have the tourist numbers - so the 60,000 were largely kiwis. The Bledisloe could have been re-created. But because McCully and co wanted a “party” the whole thing fell apart. yes there were some train issues, but that was AT bad management.
We need to restore faith in trains, and AT/McCully need to work out a way to “ration” train access. It’s all very well for the Herald to suggest driving - but how does that work for 30,000 tourists for the finals??
As someone also close to EP - I understand LucyJH - but next 6 weeks was always going to be tough. Where I’m really annoyed is this may have undone the good work of teh last 2 years…..
Perhaps they should scrap the nonsense of terminating trains at Kingsland and Morningside and just double up longer trains on the western line..This would then not affect the regular customers. Perhaps several expresses could terminate at Morningside using the sidings there though. There are sidings at Waitakere and these could be used to park surplus trains during match time and likewise going the other way at the Strand??
This moral panic surrounding last Friday’s systemic failure is childish and unproductive. Only in New Zealand would there be so much soul searching over an event that was too successful for its own good. For the love of Mike, grow up, people.
I’m not sure cars are going to be the winner on any night. This sounds to me suspiciously like the early stages of another failure, only this time caused by too little train use.
I think it was Martin Luther who talked about a drunken man on a horse, who having fallen off on one side would then lean so far the other way he’d fall off again.
Awesome, so if 50-70% DO take their cars to Eden Park it means I will have a nice quiet night at Britomart pre and post match.
Might even get a chance to duck up stairs during the lull and watch a bit of the game.
Ah well, come Sunday we shall know.
The key to a successful operation on Sunday will be whether or not they can prevent any fully loaded trains from stopping for more than 15 minutes, as that seems to be about the maximum that the punters will wait before breaking out.
I can’t get over the level of hysteria you kiwis are generating over this.
System failures are regular things for us in Melbourne on a normal day - and grist to the media mill and pressure on politicians.
But no-one here would do a dummy spit and say “No trains, never again” based on one event failure.
Like the dill on Josh’s blog who claimed the western line should have been ripped up for a busway (Hello, and the freight??) based on one event.
Tell me, would Wellington people be ripping down the newly installed wire from Waikanae, and sending the Matangis back, based on one night of failure with a sporting event?
pretty simple really.
vote in the party you want, they don’t build the trains the way it should be, then complain about it.
funny because all the people complaining are probably the people that voted in who is in charge and who doesn’t want to spend money on it.
gota love this whole saga, issue, or whatever it is.
Its so stupid its actually funny.
I live in Zone B and it’s an absolute disgrace that people attending Eden Park can’t park in my street. The parking zone restrictions only shift the problem of people driving further out. It’s a known fact that at best 50% would travel by PT. Now that’s going to be even less. The point is that PT does not solve the problem, and never will. Why don’t we just have cars in every street for the whole 120 minutes of inconvenience?
The other point to my fellow neighbours, if you don’t like it then move. Eden Park was here before you. And surly we are not going to be like those PC muppets in Western springs trying to stop the speedway?